From: Chris (clarson52@comcast.net)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 23:21:54 GMT-3
Whether their infrastructure is important is somewhat dependant on your
needs. BLSR rings are ideal. If you have a great need for redundancy and
availability then you will want to make sure they use BLSR in their network
between POP's and can provide you BLSR to the SONET ADM. UPSR is good to but
you lose half your available bandwidth for each node you drop, at least with
the Cisco ONS products. I am not sure if this is a symptom of UPSR's in
general or has something to do with the Cisco product. I think it is the way
Cisco does UPSR but I am not 100% on that. At any rate BLSR to your closet
can be expensive so it may not be for you, however, I would want to know
that the provider was doing it, and that their network was OC-3 or better
and would not be a bottleneck for your connection. In any large provider
this is not really an issue.
If a provider refused to give peering information, YES I would be very
hesitant to do business with them. This also feeds into the first comment. A
network is only as good as it's weakest link. Who cares if you have an OC-3
to the internet when your provider peers with Joe's Internet over a T-1?
What tier is your provider and what tier of provider do they peer with?
One other thing that is not related to the question, but may help you save
some money. LEC reps will not normally suggest or even mention this as you
will be taking money from their pocket.
If you are using an OC-3 to connect to a cloud based service, and you have
many smaller links, or DS-3's or even maybe multiple OC-3's there is no
reason why you can't put them all down the same OC. If you are going to
purchase an OC-3 , and you also have links thru the LEC like T-1's or DS-3's
the LEC is going to charge you a port and access charge for each one. If you
purchase an OC-3, you can put all those electrical links into the OC-3 and
stop paying the monthly port charge they charge you for each individual
circuit. This can save a considerable amount of money. The more electrical
links you put down your fiber instead of seperate lines, the more you save.
Especially when you grow beyond a single OC-3. Many companies are under the
impression that they have some level of redundancy because they have these
indiviual electrical circuits. This is mostly false, unless diverse paths
were specifically ordered. It is likely (especially if you are in a large or
multi-tenant building) that the phone company has simply brought in their
SONET ADM and an OC and is breaking out the individual electrical circuits
themselves and charging you for each one. You can do this yourself with the
Cisco METRO line of products and save your company the monthly port charges
for each one. If you order an OC-3 and put your electricals down it you only
pay the port charge on the OC, not the individual circuits you put into it.
You will still pay the access charge, but you are already paying a port
charge for your OC so those go away on the elctricals.
Even in buildings where they are not bringing in rings or fiber all the
electrical circuits usually go back to the same pop, down the same conduit
and are sometimes even plugged into the same blade on the switch. So the
only redundancy they really have is between the ADM and the router.
Sorry, I know that was not part of your post, but it does have the potential
to save you money.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Heywood" <hheywood@hotmail.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 3:50 PM
Subject: OT: BGP - Peering
> Hi guys/girls. Just a quick question to those of you who have purchased
> high speed Internet services, or who have an opinion on the purchase of
> these services. If you are buying a high speed Intenet service (let's say
> OC3 for example) how important is it for you to know about the carrier's
> infrastructure? Specifically, do you care who they peer with and who they
> use for transit? If you asked a carrier for this information and they
> declined to give it to you, would it have a significant impact on your
> decision whether to do business with the carrier? Comments or a ranking
> out of 10 would be appreciated. 10 Being more important. Thanks Howard
> Heywood Note to admin: Not my "registered" email account. Sorry if this
> causes headaches.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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